In retail stores that sell perishable food items such as packaged ground beef, as much as twenty percent or more of such perishable food items end up being discounted or discarded. The man hours involved in effecting discounts can be substantial in view of the fact that perishables such as ground beef are typically taken to the back room, re-weighed, re-wrapped and re-labeled. Additionally, as much as fifty percent or more of the “shrink” or loss experienced by a store occurs in the perishables departments.
In a retail store including perishable items having bar code labels placed thereon, the bar code labels including a scannable bar code with a package specific price incorporated therein and an item identifier incorporated therein, it is known in the prior art to provide a method of marking down package prices including the steps of: (a) scanning an original bar code of a given item with a portable scanner; (b) identifying a discount for the given item using the portable scanner; (c) printing a discount bar code label with a printer associated with the scanner, the discount bar code label including a scannable discount bar code having a discounted package specific price incorporated therein which is determined based upon the discount identified in step (b), the scannable discount bar code also including an item identifier incorporated therein; and (d) applying the discount bar code label to the given item such that the original bar code is covered and the scannable discount bar code is exposed. The applied discount could be an established or entered percent discount, an established or entered set amount, or an established or entered flat price. This prior art hand-held unit could maintain a log of the mark downs made for uploading to the store computer system. Although previously used for non-frequent shopper or non-tiered pricing items, this prior art system/method did not provide suitable mark down capability for frequent shopper items.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a system and method for facilitating discounts or mark downs of items having a frequent shopper or other tiered pricing scheme.
As used herein the term “frequent shopper” refers to any special pricing program that might be offered by a store to certain customers who participate in the program as identified by some type of member ID such as a program card. An alternative term commonly used in the industry for such programs is the term customer loyalty program. The term “special” is used in connection with pricing associated with such a program.